Senior Year Blog: Archive Nov. 8 - Jan. 11

Ahoy, my friends! Happy belated new year to you all! It’s 2006 and you know what that means….absolutely nothing! That’s right, it’s a different year but it’s still the same old song and dance here on my quaint little blog.

Now that it’s 2006, that means I can get to work on the FAFSA! But unfortunately, my W-2 forms haven’t come in the mail, yet. However, when they do come, I’ll be sure to file my tax info right away so I can get cracking on the FAFSA.

Battle of the Bands is scheduled for February 17th, and tryouts are next week. My band is hard at work on learning some cool cover songs that will hopefully win the hearts of young, impressionable underclassmen. We were thinking of playing originals like last year, but no one really cares about bands that play original music at these things. And to be completely honest, I’ve thought about it, and I think it’s kind of pretentious to ONLY do original music, especially at the high school level. It’s not like we’re out looking for a record deal. We just want to play music and make people dance. That’s just my opinion, though.

My school also has this little activity called Theater Guild. I guess that’s just a fancy name for Drama club. It’s basically a group of thespians who get together and perform a lot of one-act plays. Some of my friends are peer pressuring me into doing it this year. I already wrote a mini one-act play for it, so I guess I may as well go the whole nine yards and try to act. It should be a pretty fun experience to say the least.

It’s midnight right now and I have to be up in six hours for school. Sorry to be so brief but dry your eyes, little buddy. I’ll be back with another update in a couple days. Just sit tight!

Later,
Rich

Richmas Came Early
Dec. 19, 2005

I hope everyone is doing well this Christmas season. I know I am getting swamped with school work. I actually just finished a six page essay that took the entire weekend to do so I’m a little overwhelmed right now.

Some good news, however, is that one of my concerns regarding college has now been taken care of. For my birthday, my aunt gave me her laptop that she has only used for playing solitaire. She’s one of those technologically slow people, so she decided to just give it to me. I am ecstatic. One of my concerns was how on earth my family and I were going to afford a good laptop. I had figured I’d have to get some cheap one that had no cool stuff on it whatsoever. But thankfully, I got this sweet Dell Notebook and I can go to college prepared. And yes, Dell has paid me to mention their brand of computers.

For those of you who have read my past blogs, you’re probably saying to yourself, “Wait a minute. Rich said his birthday was on December 21st! But he’s already getting presents? Lies! How dare FastWeb sponsor such a treacherous dog!” The reason for getting my presents early is that I have to work on my birthday so there’d be no way to have a legitimate Richmas celebration with work looming over my head. So we just celebrated it last Saturday.

As far as Christmas is concerned, I’m actually fearful to even mention Christmas. Seems like there’s a lot of controversy going around in regards to what people should say. Some people think “Happy Holidays” is an abominable saying and Christmas is the reason for the winter vacation to begin with.

The way I see it, our country is made up of many different people. We’ve got some Christians, some Jews, some Arabs, heck, even some Southerners too. I can see what some groups are getting at when they prefer the slogan, “Happy Holidays.” I know when I go to work; I’ll be forced to use that saying, so I really don’t care. If I had the same rebellious spirit I had when I was 15, I’d probably be like, “I’ll say anything I want to say! You can’t make me say anything!” but since then I’ve stopped caring.

Now that I think about it, Senioritis has started to affect everything I do. I have just really stopped caring. Like the other day, I left for school with no pants on! No pants, whatsoever. But I didn’t care. To correct that problem would have required me to go back to my house and put pants on and that is just way too much effort.

Seriously, though, I should start cracking down on that FAFSA form. In fact I’ll go do that now. Mmmm, FAFSA.

Happy Holidays! cough merrychristmas cough

Later,
Rich

Accepted to Penn State
Dec. 9, 2005

Ahoy, ya scurvy dogs! That’s pirate talk for, “What’s crack-a-lackin’?” Well, a lot, actually! This week I found out that I was accepted to Penn State, University Park! I’m really excited! Penn State is definitely my top choice and now I can stop worrying about if I got in or not.

I think my college process is about 3/4 of the way finished. I’ve applied and been accepted to three schools that I would like to attend, so now I just have to fill out the FAFSA and, eh, maybe look for some minor scholarship or something. I don’t know. I’m hoping the government gives me lots of money since I live with my grandparents. If the government can take care of at least half of the tuition then I don’t think I’d have a problem doing work-study or, heck, even taking out loans. I’m probably going to regret saying that I wouldn’t mind taking out a loan, but whatever. The point is all I have to do is worry about the financial aspect of college and keep my current grades the way they are and I’ll be set.

It’s funny, though. I told some of my friends I got accepted and apparently some of my best friends have already decided to go there. They’re even in the process of deciding who rooms with whom. I told my friend Dan that we should room together if we go and he tells me, “Yeah, I would but I already told Bry I would room with him if he went.” It’s only December and people have already decided whom they are going to room with in college. Man, everything I was told about the college application process has been drastically negated. I remember last year, worrying about staying up until the wee hours of the night, filling out applications, writing essays, all while freaking out. I’d hate to make it sound easy, but so far it’s been a cakewalk. My advice for any underclassmen reading this: Start early. It’ll be a breeze.

But maybe I’m being too optimistic. Even if I am, though, I think I deserve to be optimistic. I’ve been going through some pretty tough times lately. I guess some of you readers out there might think I’m this model student who gets all his stuff done and doesn’t have to worry about anything in his life. Well, the truth is I only present that stuff on here because as far as college stuff goes, I am doing fine. But the truth is I don’t really say much about other things that go on in my life. Like the things I’m going through with my ex-girlfriend, for example. It’s really tough, and I’m sure all you teens out there have been, are, or will be in the same boat as me. I’m not saying this to make anyone feel sorry for me, it’s just as I write these entries, I’ve noticed I talk about a lot of positives that happen. Positives are great but I don’t want anyone to think that I don’t deal with problems. I could go on and on about how “fun” living with my grandparents can be or how I’m dealing with my friends changing into completely different people, but I don’t want this blog to turn into a whiny emo song.

So, yeah, that was kind of random, but I just felt that it needed to be said. I may be writing for a Web site but let me assure you, I feel pain! And stress! Plenty of it! But an acceptance letter from Penn State really helps alleviate that :.

Later,
Rich

Report card time
Dec. 2, 2005

Hello, everyone. It sure has been a while! I almost completely forgot about old Bloggie. Yeah, Bloggie. I decided I needed a name for my weblog here. Bloggie will do. I’m open to suggestions, though.

Work has been cutting my schedule to like 8-12 hours a week. I’m not sure if they realize it’s Christmas time or not, but hopefully they get their act together and start giving me a lot of hours, like in the old days. I need money. Of course, once I get more hours I’m going to come on here and complain about how they give me too many hours and I can’t get anything done. It’s just a vicious cycle, I tell you.

I got my report card about a week ago. I thought I did pretty well. I was 4 points away from second honors and my average overall is an 88. That translates to about a B+/A-. Of course, my grandparents didn’t do anything but point out the fact that I missed second honors by 4 points. They can’t really grasp the concept that it’s my senior year and I’ve already been accepted to two colleges.

Speaking of colleges, I’m still waiting on a response from Penn State. If you remember from last update, I complained that the guidance department is taking too long with sending out transcripts. My claims were affirmed when I received a letter from Penn State saying they still need my 9th, 10th and 11th grade transcripts. I asked guidance and they said they sent it out a while ago.

Whatever, man. I get more and more apathetic towards college by the day. And now with the end of the year, I’m going to have to fill out the FAFSA and do my taxes and financial stuff like that. I can’t wait! It’s going to be almost as fun as being hit in the head multiple times with an aluminum bat while watching someone set my DVD collection on fire. I really hate doing taxes. Anyone want to do them for me? I can pay you in croutons! Croutons! They make salads taste amazing!

Well, like my uncle always says, “When you mention salad croutons in a blog entry, it’s time to wrap it up.” I hope everyone had a good Thanksgiving. If anything funny happened to anyone, like, say your Dad tried to ride the family dog like a horse (that didn’t happen at my house, I swear) then let me know. I could use a laugh.

By the way, thanks to all the people who take the time to e-mail me. I try to answer them all but quite frankly I get lazy.

A lot has happened since I last wrote. I took a break from writing because I was under a lot of stress. My girlfriend decided that it’d be best to break up entirely, so I’ve been trying my best to deal with that. I’ve talked to her about it and basically the gist is that she needs space because she’s been inundated with school, the play, chorus, and I was just adding to her stress. We still talk and stuff, but she needs time to decide what she wants. All I can do really is be supportive and hope for the best.

But I won’t bore you with high school drama. I’m sure you all are dealing with the same thing. I applied to Penn State a couple weeks ago, but I don’t think my school’s guidance department has even sent out my transcript yet. I don’t mean to bash my own school, but our guidance department is so unorganized. For a while we didn’t even have an actual guidance counselor. We just had someone sitting at the desk filling out forms and sending out stuff. She was efficient, but it was quite the guerilla setup. Now we’ve got an actual guidance counselor, and it’s taking them two weeks now to send stuff out. I don’t get it.

Anyway, the real downer of this is that all my friends are getting accepted to Penn State. They’re even getting accepted to University Park. Seriously, the week after I apply they get accepted. Turns out they applied in September. So, I’m really hoping I get accepted to University Park campus and that I didn’t apply too late.

The first quarter of my senior year ended, and I’m expecting report cards next week. I think I did okay. I’m only worried about history. My history teacher is a funny guy but a stickler when it comes to essays. I can’t just take it easy with him. I have to really put forth effort, which I don’t like to do. It’s senioritis at its best.

That’s about all for now. Hope all the seniors are doing okay with applications and what not. By the way, 36 days until Richmas. Some gift ideas: iPod, new Guitar, money, new car, more money. Just throwing some ideas out there.

Later,
Rich

I went to Homecoming and all I got was this lousy shirt
Nov. 8, 2005

Another week has gone by and another application sent! Surprisingly, I applied to Penn State. I say surprisingly because for a while, I hated Penn State like it was my job. But once I found out about their film program, I became immediately interested. Allow me to explain.

I keep changing my mind about what I want to study. First, it was teaching English, then it was journalism, and now it’s filmmaking. I think I’ve made up my mind. Ever since I saw the movie “Requiem for a Dream,” I’ve been obsessed with movies. I love everything about them — making them, analyzing them, writing them. I recently directed a six-minute movie for my English class and my friend and I edited it. I really think it turned out pretty good for a couple amateurs. When I was directing people I felt so alive and it felt so cool to create something even if it was a small English project. So, as of now, Penn State is my first choice. It’s crazy how I keep changing my mind, but hopefully I’ve found my calling.

In other news, my school just finished our “Spirit Week”. It’s a week that’s filled with fun activities like dress down days (for all you lucky kids that don’t have to wear uniforms, that means we got to wear regular clothes), karaoke during lunch periods, pep rally and of course our Homecoming dance on Saturday.

I just got back from said Homecoming dance. I went with my girlfriend and we had a blast. However, I do have some bad news regarding my girlfriend and I. We decided to go on a “break” from each other. I’m sure some kids out there are dying for some high school drama like on the OC and Laguna Beach, so keep checking back for updates on what happens! And yeah, I am pretty sad right now. That’s probably why this post isn’t very funny like the other ones. I’ll manage, though.

Anyway, I’m beat. I have to write my newspaper article tomorrow and write an English paper on a book I never read. Senioritis is no fun.